Where Did The Time Go?

Writing is too dark below. Maxine says…..A household hint: Stop dusting, and you can use your coffee table as a message board.

I have really been feeling like Maxine lately. A curmudgeon. But I am not as funny, nor do I have her fashion sense:) LOL.

I never have thought I had a problem with time. I am rarely, if ever late for anything.(unless “issues” get in the way). I tend to be 10 minutes early for everything. LL is the opposite. He waits till the last-minute, rushes, and then is 10 minutes late. When we are together, we BALANCE each other out. He waits till last-minute, rushes, but I am pushing him, and we end up on time. Not 10 minutes early or late. It’s what we do. It works for us. So I was a bit surprised yesterday, to discover I have a time problem. I don’t estimate correctly, how long a job will take. I had only three things on my long list I was going to tackle. The dining area bookcase, two laundry room shelves and one entry way. It was almost noon, I was getting hungry and knew once I ate lunch, my “issues” would start-up and I would be done for the afternoon. But I wanted to get those three things done. Well I could wait an hour more to eat. I figured 15 minutes for the bookcase, 15 minutes for the two shelves, and 30 minutes for the entry way.

So I start on the bookcase. I did not realize how overloaded this was. It had become a resting place for any reading material that had come into the house for quite a while. Plus, there have been some books resting there for years, unread, not needed, taking up space. So I start in. One shelf at a time. Taking my time deciding, is anyone ever going to read this? If read, is there any reason to still keep it? Separating into piles. Keeping, putting somewhere else, giving away, throwing away, etc. Cleaning the shelf, and moving on to the next shelf. Ending this by putting books back in categories of genre, and putting all the rest of the books in garbage, elsewhere in the house, and a huge lawn bag FILLED to go to Goodwill. It was so heavy that I dragged it out of the house and left it beside the pickup. Couldn’t lift it to put it in. What a mess. Anyway, this one task took me 1 hour and 20 minutes. But it is done.

So I did not get anything else done on my list. But today is a new day and instead of adding another task to the two I did not get done. I will just work on the two, and maybe only get one done. Since I obviously have no idea how long it will take me:)

Later today, when LL gets home, we are going to Salem, to Winco to get groceries for the weekend at Miller’s Crossing. (I normally shop at the two local stores but we need a lot of things and want my dollars to go further.) I would just like to get this over with earlier. My “issues” are trickier during late afternoon, but for me to go it alone in Salem earlier, and then having problems is a worse fate, because I would then just have to leave the cart and come home without the groceries.